Names, brands, writing, and the language of commerce.

December 06, 2018

Polldaddy is dead; long live Crowdsignal, its successor in the platform-agnostic poll- and survey-creation business. The service, which is owned by Wordpress, was silent on the reason for the recent name change, leaving us to wonder: Was daddy too patriarchal? Was the name likely to be confused with the unrelated GoDaddy*, the internet-domain registrar?

As long as we’re asking questions, what accounts for the plethora of DADDY brand names? There are 757 DADDY registrations in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office database, from FROG DADDY (“men’s and women’s wearing apparel”) and CAT DADDY (“beds for household pets”) to THE SOUP DADDY (“soups, stews”), THE CANDLE DADDY (“candles”), TACO DADDY (“catering”), UNDERWEAR DADDY (“socks”), CHOCOLATE DADDY (“sunglasses”), WOLF DADDY (“reality-based television program”), and ICE DADDY (“electric air deodorizers for refrigerators”). Nearly a third of the registrations have been filed in the last two years. What accounts for the trend?

September 20, 2018

Mountain Dew, the neon-yellow-green soft drink brand owned by PepsiCo, evidently failed to consult anyone in Scotland before it introduced its new ad slogan, “Epic thrills start with a chug.” If it had, it would have learned that chug is Scottish slang for masturbate. (Jelisa Castrodale for Vice, via Language Log)

That word: It does not mean what you think it means. Not in Scotland, anyway. (Via @jaysebro)

August 23, 2018

Caterpillar, the heavy-equipment manufacturer, has had a registered trademark for CAT since 1949. Now it’s extending CAT to a footwear line. And not just steel-toed boots, either: these oxfords are women’s street fashion. (Duets Blog)

*

The method Google Maps uses to name city neighborhoods “is often mysterious. The company declined to detail how some place names came about, though some appear to have resulted from mistakes by researchers, rebrandings by real estate agents — or just outright fiction.” (New York Times)

February 23, 2018

The Oscar-nominated 2017 film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri has inspired at least two real-world imitations, reports AdWeek. After the shooting massacre in a Parkland, Florida, high school, the group Progressive Turnout Project placed a billboard with a gun-reform challenge outside the Janesville, Wisconsin, office of House Speaker Paul Ryan, who has accepted $61,401 in contributions from the National Rifle Association.

“17 killed in their classrooms. Still no gun reform? How come, Paul Ryan?”

And in London, Justice4Grenfell placed three mobile billboards outside Grenfell Towers, the site of disastrous fire last year that killed 71 people.

“71 dead / and still no arrests? / How come?”

For comparison, here are the billboards that appear in the film, which stars Frances McDormand.

December 22, 2017

The last linkfest of 2017! Let’s exorcise this miserable year with some amusing and edumacational links. And have yourselves a merry little Festivus.

*

Drew Magary is back with the 2017 edition of his Hater’s Guide to the Williams-Sonoma catalog: “More than any reindeer parable or silly children’s rhyme, it is THIS catalog and its splendidly useless items wherein you and I can discover the TRUE meaning of Christmas, which is that it delays the pain and horrors of this shit world at least until after New Year’s.”

“You listen to me, Williams-Sonoma: There will NEVER be a fondueassaince. Ever.”

Collins Dictionary, based in London and Glasgow, got a head start on the WOTY competition in early November, selectingfake news over runners-up such as unicorn, echo chamber, and gig economy. (Related: My November 2016 post on fake.)

October 06, 2017

Last week I took the Coast Starlight to Seattle, a city I hadn’t visited in decades, and Vancouver, BC, where I’d never been at all. The journey was leisurely and scenic, the weather was mild and dry, and the political climate shift after I crossed the border was startling in the best possible way. I don’t think I’d fully appreciated how exhausting it has been, over the last 18 months or so, to live in the U.S. until I found myself in a country where sanity and courtesy appear to be the norm.

Oh, and I did some brand-spotting. The theme: portmanteaus, good and bad.